$50 Million Hopped Away: Ottawa Paid $6.25M Per Job to Push Crickets on Canadians
Aspire Food Group received a $50 million handout, creating only eight jobs before receivership.
Aspire Food Group, London, Ontario's "success story," is anything but. $50 million of your money was funneled into a company whose big idea was crickets for dinner.
Ottawa granted Aspire an $8.5 million repayable contribution. Farm Credit Canada added a $37.5 million loan in 2022 and another $4 million loan in 2024.
No one wanted to eat bugs, despite government attempts to convince us they were the future of dinner.
Liberals claim 'no records exist' for $9M given to collapsed cricket farm
— Rebel News (@RebelNewsOnline) June 3, 2025
Located in London, Ontario, the Aspire Food Group facility was billed as the future of food. Now it's being picked apart in bankruptcy court.@SheilaGunnReid with the details: https://t.co/C1l7IuZ4Wt
Aspire pledged 87 jobs, but only created eight. Taxpayers paid $6.25 million per job. In May 2025, Aspire entered receivership, leaving no jobs or money, only Ottawa's excuses.
Aspire has repaid only $1 million of the $8.5 million government contribution, with the remaining $7.5 million lost. The $41.5 million in two loans is unlikely to be recovered.
Worse still, Agriculture Canada never studied consumer demand for insects, spending millions on an unrequested experiment. Health Canada approved cricket powder in 2016 without public consultation.
Canadians face soaring grocery bills, with overall inflation at 1.9% and food prices up 3.5% (meat up 7.2% year-over-year). While families struggle to afford real food, the Liberals propose cricket protein.
Aspire Food Group, the world's largest cricket-processing facility, has gone into receivership, halting its insect-based food production.
— Rebel News (@RebelNewsOnline) May 13, 2025
READ MORE: https://t.co/hK5eUMeTeo pic.twitter.com/zJr2A1e90A
Despite Aspire's costly failure, the government still showcases the company on its ISED "Stories to Inspire" website. What exactly is inspiring: anxiety over wasted tax dollars, or disgust that insects are offered as a solution to inflated grocery bills, exacerbated by government policies?
Here’s the truth: Canadians reject insects in protein shakes. This wasn't about demand but elite ideology, using our money to socially engineer diets while they enjoy ribeye.
And it failed.
For true food security, the government should support Canadian farmers by cutting taxes, reducing red tape, and ending trade wars, rather than funding cricket startups. Let them feed Canadians.
Because Canadians don’t want bugs. We want beef, bread, eggs, milk, and produce — food we can actually afford.
Sheila Gunn Reid
Chief Reporter
Sheila Gunn Reid is the Alberta Bureau Chief for Rebel News and host of the weekly The Gunn Show with Sheila Gunn Reid. She's a mother of three, conservative activist, and the author of best-selling books including Stop Notley.
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COMMENTS
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Fran G commented 2025-09-21 17:42:25 -0400If so many people hadnt been fooled by trudumbs marijuana promise, we wouldnt be in this sharp decline since 2015! So if we added up all the scamming the libs have shoved down our throats for the last 10 years, what would that total be? Billions, more……………………….. -
Bernhard Jatzeck commented 2025-09-18 21:53:14 -0400And how much of that money found its way into the bank accounts of the friends of the Liberal party?
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Bruce Atchison commented 2025-09-18 21:39:12 -0400Can you imagine what good $50-million could do for veterans, disabled citizens, and trades grants for students? Would any private firm waste that much money on a John Lennon dream like that?
